Cartoonist Profile: Rube Goldberg

Foolish Questions, I’m the Guy, Boob McNutt, Mike and Ike, Pepsi and Pete, Life’s Little Jokes, Sweep Out the Padded Cell, and, of course, The Inventions of Lucifer G. Butts.
Oh, and over 70 other titles, along with sports and (Pulitzer Prize-winning) editorial cartoons.
Those would be the creations of Rube Goldberg.

Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was and is best-known for his crazy cartoon inventions. “Was” because, in his 65-year career, Goldberg was one of America’s most popular personalities—he was far more than a cartoonist—author of more than 70 different comic strips, as well as editorial cartoons (for which he won a Pulitzer), essays, poems, lyrics, short stories, speeches, film and stage treatments and sculptures. “Is” because, long after his death, Goldberg’s name lives on as an adjective in the Merriam Webster dictionary: “accomplishing by complex means what seemingly could be done simply…also Rube Gold-berg-i-an…”